1 Star Review
Nov 05,2018
By:
'AVG'
Nov 05,2018
Branch: Tunbridge Wells, 1 Vale Road
Services: Lettings (as a Landlord)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: TN4
Branch: Tunbridge Wells, 1 Vale Road
Lettings (as a Landlord)
Postcode: TN4
14
people found
this helpful
As a landlord who used Ashton Burkinshaw (Tunbridge Wells) to manage my property I can safely advise both landlords and tenants to avoid them at all costs.
When you pay them to manage a property, you expect them to do that and keep the tenants happy and comfortable, which they have failed to do. It was only a year or so into the agreement when these things started coming to light. For example, there were a couple of issues with the house which AB rung me to authorise work for, which of course I did. It then transpired that behind the scenes (over and over) there was a total delay in getting work done and zero communication between the agents and the tenants. The tenants had to post me a letter asking for help as they had lost all confidence in AB for not bothering to get anything done or communicate with them at all as a last resort. Totally unacceptable for an agent that charges you for a management fee and also totally unfair on the tenants who pay rent.
I hadn't even realised that this was all going on as I assumed (wrongly) that AB were actually doing what they were supposed to do with my management fee and looking after the tenants and that all problems were being resolved. It was only at this stage where I took a personal approach with the tenants (which is what AB are being paid for, but hey) and told them that if there were any further problems with the agents (as a first point of contact, as usual) to then contact me and I would correspond with the agent and find out what was going on. A couple more niggly bits but not major problems with the house that needed resolving cropped up and every single time the tenants had to contact me due to lack of communication from AB.
I have now experienced this first hand with the agents in my communication with them to get things resolved for the tenants and they are pretty hopeless. They don't answer phones, they don't call you back in a timely manner, you have to chase them continuously and that's exactly what the tenants told me. You leave them messages, they don't ring back with any urgency. Sometimes you'll be calling the office for ages over and over and nobody even acknowledges the call. It's worse than ringing HMRC Inland Revenue. This is exactly why the tenants complained about them and quite rightly so and I can see why. When you do finally get to talk to someone the attitude is pretty poor, and that's with me (the landlord) so as a tenant it must be even worse. The tenants' well being are the most important thing which is what you pay an agent to manage if you don't have the time or workman contacts. AB fail the tenants because they don't communicate with them and don't get problems resolved and they fail the landlord for not only the same reason but because they aren't looking after the tenants which you are paying them to do.
You may as well manage the property yourselves, it would be better than using AB. Landlords and tenants - avoid.
Comment on agent fees
A waste of money - it would be better to do it yourself.
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